Little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
Summary: At a Voyager memorial service, Admiral Paris reflects on his rocky relationship with the son he believes to be dead. Set sometime during Season Two.


TITLE: Little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon  
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring  
GENRE: ST: Voy  
CODES: P. Angst.  
PARTS: 1/1  
RATING: PG (mild language)  
DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns all, but sometimes I wish they'd give these guys a bit more thought.  
SUMMARY: At a memorial service for Voyager's crew, Admiral Paris broods about his rocky relationship with the son he believes to be dead. Set sometime during Season Two.   
PLEASE NOTE: Some elements of my Paris backstory do not jibe with Jeri Taylor's version of same (though they work well enough with what we saw on TV). You have been warned.  
  
  
Little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon  
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring  
  
  
//I shouldn't be here,// he thought, not for the first time.  
  
Alone for the moment, Admiral Owen Paris looked around him at the crowded hall, at the civilians in their somber formal garb, and the sober-faced officers, ranging from cadet status to his own rank, in the modified frock-coats of Starfleet's formal dress uniform. For the most part, they stood in pairs and in clusters, talking quietly. Here a middle-aged couple stood hand-in-hand, there an aged woman put an arm around the shoulders of a sulky-faced youth, and, oh God, here a human woman held a babe in arms, a fair-skinned infant with a shock of light-colored hair.  
  
The admiral turned away from that last.  
  
These were the friends, the loved ones, the classmates and colleagues and kin of the crew of the starship Voyager. The ill-fated vessel had been missing for more than a year, and those who loved her people had gathered together to mourn their losses. Across the room, the admiral saw the slender, graying woman he knew to be Arthur Cavit's wife, encircled by the three solemn-faced lads who were the first officer's sons. Mrs. Cavit's back was straight, her features composed, as she moved amongst the little groupings of people with grave dignity, comforting them as if she were not herself bereaved.  
  
She had spoken to the admiral when he first came in, thanking him for his kindness -- and Paris realized, with some shock, that she assumed he had come to this service as a representative of the Admiralty, to express official condolences. Whilst his rank would indeed empower him to assume that role, he had not been given any such assignment, nor had he had any such intention. Nonetheless, he did not correct Sharon Cavit.  
  
In another corner, speaking quietly to an elderly Oriental couple, stood Captain Kathryn Janeway's lover, a tall, professorial man by the name of Mark -- the admiral could not recall his last name, and didn't suppose it mattered. The man's expression looked carefully controlled, but the pain in his soft brown eyes was visible across the room.  
  
Moments ago, Mark had also spoken to the admiral, thanking him for attending for Kathryn's sake. The admiral knew that Janeway's lover assumed they were both there to mourn the same loss, that of the bright, energetic woman who had once served as Paris' science officer. While the admiral remembered Janeway well, and did regret her disappearance, he had not come because of her. But he let Mark's assumption stand.  
  
Only a handful of people would have known why Admiral Owen Paris was attending the Voyager memorial; he was, himself, the only one of those present. Whether or not he would otherwise have chosen to speak, the same regulations that governed all his life prevented him from explaining.  
  
Officially, the starship Voyager's mission at the time of its disappearance was still classified.  
  
Officially, Thomas Eugene Paris, Starfleet expatriate briefly employed by the Maquis, had never been on the starship Voyager.  
  
Officially, Owen Andrew Paris, Starfleet admiral and father of Thomas Eugene, had lost no one when the starship Voyager went missing.  
  
Unofficially, unobserved, Admiral Paris sighed. There were those who, even if they did know all that had happened, would have thought it hypocritical of him to mourn. At that thought, he could almost hear the voice of his late ex-wife, Tom's mother, Maggie: //Oh, yes, play the grieving father *now*, Owen! It's easier than playing the father of a living son -- easier than being there when he needed you!// It stung him to his soul, that he could not tell that impassioned ghost that she was wrong, that she had no right to berate him.  
  
He had not been there when Tom needed him. He had rarely "been there" at all.  
  
Owen Paris remembered little of his son's childhood, and most of what he did remember came from recorded messages: at first, just the holographs and narratives that Maggie sent to him on the Al-Batani, of a pretty, willful little boy learning to talk, learning to walk, learning to feed himself and to name his colors. Learning to wave and say, "Hi, Daddy. I love you, Daddy."  
  
Later came holotapes that a slightly-older boy had made all by himself: Tom showing off the latest additions to his room, explaining his latest school projects, introducing his friends. "This is for my daddy," Tom would solemnly tell the fidgeting little boys as he lined them up in front of the camera's lens. "He's an *admiral*. Say `hi' to Daddy." The boys would mumble, awkwardly, "Hello, sir." And at the end of every tape, Tom would smile a dazzling, irresistible smile, and his bright blue eyes would be even brighter as he said what looked and sounded as if he believed them to be magic words: "When you come home...." And there would follow a list of activities, at school, in the neighborhood, with Tom's friends and cousins -- things that Tom wanted to do and share with his father.  
  
Of course, when Owen Paris did make one of the rare trips home that his exploration missions permitted, he was often too busy to make the rounds of those activities.  
  
Eventually the tapes had decreased in frequency. By the time Tom was an adolescent in boarding school, Owen might receive one tape, or two, in a solar year. The tone of those tapes grew more formal, far less confiding. Still, every once in a while the phrase would crop up, sounding a bit wistful: "When you come home."  
  
Of course, Owen Paris, divorced now, made it home less frequently than before. Even those visits were not always pleasant, because he did have to do something about the disturbing reports he'd begun receiving, that Tom was "acting out" at school.  
  
Then Tom was at the Academy, nearly an adult, suddenly very busy and very terse. Then he was a Starfleet ensign. And then --  
  
Came the incident at Caldik Prime, and all that followed, and Owen Paris, finally stateside, saw Tom sitting as the defendant in a court-martial trial and didn't know who he was looking at: surely not his son. *His* son could never have done those things, said those things. And when Owen, still deep in shock, spoke to Tom, the words he uttered were harsh, angry, unforgivable, and his son's face closed down, only the blue eyes blazing in a face otherwise devoid of expression.  
  
It was the last time they'd spoken as father and son -- the last time they'd spoken at all. When Tom had gone on trial for treason, and been convicted of working for the Maquis, Owen had been present, but neither of them had spoken a word to the other. They had only exchanged glares.  
  
Now Tom's glare was the last memory his father would ever have of him. And his own glare was the last memory his son had carried with him into the Badlands, to his disappearance, to his....to his death?  
  
Oh, God. //I don't belong here. I don't belong here, with these sad, sorry people who loved their sons and their daughters and their husbands and wives, who were there, who loved and were loved, who deserve whatever comfort this can give. Maggie would be right. Would Tom even want me here? My only son, and I don't know what he'd want, I don't even know...//  
  
With a suddenness people would hardly have expected of a large, heavy-set man in his middle years, Owen Paris turned and -- there was no other word for it -- fled the hall, the words //too late// beating a bitter tattoo in his mind. Tom's eyes, angry, accusing, incandescent, followed him, as they had for these too many days and nights since Voyager had disappeared, as he was beginning to fear they always would. And Owen had no right to entreat them, no way to ask for forgiveness, no hope of making amends. If he could have another chance...if he could have just a few more minutes with his son....  
  
  
And the cat's in the cradle  
And the silver spoon  
Little Boy Blue  
And the man in the moon  
When you comin' home, son  
I don't know when  
But we'll get together then  
We're gonna have a good time then...  
  
-- "Cat's in the Cradle," by Harry Chapin  
  
END 


End file.
